


take a silent breath

by beccasaur



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 16:12:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7852102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beccasaur/pseuds/beccasaur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's glad it's not vocalised: this is the silence he finds most comforting. Despite the need for solitude, there's no desire to send him away—they have always occupied the same space, LT and TL, two pieces that fit next to one another with an ease he could never have predicted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	take a silent breath

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whiteinkwolftattoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiteinkwolftattoo/gifts).



> A few months ago, I wrote a short drabble for my friend [whiteinkwolftattoo](http://archiveofourown.org/users/whiteinkwolftattoo) on another platform for the prompt "first kiss." I decided to expand it for her birthday, and 2500 words later here we are. Happy birthday, thank you for being the Brad to my Nate!

He has to get away.

If he could, Nate would run – strap on his pack and his gas mask and run full pelt away from the weight of all that has happened here. All he has done—or allowed to _be_ done. He is no casual observer; he carries the guilt of what his men have done, the innocent children a weight on his shoulders, the helplessness in Baghdad threatening to drag him down completely. He wishes he could do more. He wishes he could run from it all. The burn in his lungs would be sweet, the sand he'd be able taste in his mouth not coated by the bitter tinge of disappointment, or the sharp acidity of frustration.

Chasing Rudy around the perimeter at Mathilda is only a couple of months ago, now, but it feels like years, like _lifetimes_. Nate is old, no longer a kid buoyed by idealism and hope. His younger self wouldn't recognise the man he is now, he's sure, the way that nothing seems to make sense. He used to think he was a good officer, but now...now he's not sure. Now he's just tired.

He's too weary for this body to contain.

It feels like he is carrying so much that he can't move. He still has smiles for his men, he still laughs at their jokes, and it's the same genuine amusement that it's been this whole time. But the sombre air they had when they first moved out here, battered by ambushes and injured children, is dispersing, the same sombreness Nate still has coursing through his veins, slowing the beating of his heart to a heavy thud. The relief of being in a holding pattern, halfway home, is easing tensions, and he's glad to see it.

Once they get home, some of them will be able to compartmentalise, to dive into the next shithole the Corps wants to throw them into. Readjustment takes time for everyone, but some will find it easy to be around their families again. They'll have nightmares, but nothing life-changing. They'll leave, or they'll stay, but they'll be certain of their decision, and they won't be haunted. Some of them will be fine; they're better at dealing with their shit.

But Nate...Nate can't do that. He can't forget, can't stitch together the pieces of himself that have been torn apart here, by lack of faith, by the inability to help the people who really need it, by pettiness from officers who should have left high school behind years ago. Sometimes writing in his journal isn't enough; he doesn't know how he becomes _okay_ with this experience. How he'll face anyone after this. They will see the guilt flashing across his face in bright, vivid neon.

He loves his men, but sometimes he has to get away from everyone else, find a modicum of privacy where he can lean against a wall and take a deep breath. Nate closes his eyes, pushing away thoughts of _home_. He's barely thought about it this whole tour, his life narrowing down to the present. Home is the ground. Home is the cab of his truck. Home is this brotherhood that he has here. Going back to a world too clean, too far removed from what has become his reality...he doesn't know how he'll deal with that.

It's a problem for the future. First comes the waiting, and the drive back to Kuwait, the layover in Germany. _Then_ home will become something material again. Something he'll be able to reach out and touch.

Until then, he'll take his home where he can get it. Here, in a forgotten hallway, dark and dusty, he will escape, just for a moment. Nate can only let himself _feel_ when he's alone.

Eyes closed, he hears the thud of boots on the ground, he senses the shift in the air. His hand doesn't twitch towards his gun, the invasion of another person into his bubble doesn't make the walls close in on him. He knows who it is. Nate doesn't need to look to know. “Brad,” he greets, voice soft. There is a completeness he finds, being beside Brad. Whether it's here, or out on a berm, poring over maps and films in a tent, or leaning in through a humvee window, there is a comfort. A lack of judgement.

Brad sees him, and he understands—or at least, Nate thinks that he does. The questions have been burning beneath his skin for weeks, setting his skin aflame in a way he's certain Brad has to have seen. Nate doesn't mind; at least they're something warm. At least he's feeling something other than this disappointment-lined void inside his chest, more numb by the day.

They don't talk about it. But there is something here, isn't there? It isn't some kind of sleep deprivation-induced hallucination. There is something here – can he really be the only one feeling it? After all, there is a lot they don't talk about. Not aloud, at least; they speak volumes with just their eyes.

But Nate has his closed.

“Sir,” Brad says, and there's amusement there, beneath his tongue, like seeing his LT hiding out away from the platoon, a wall steadying him and his eyes firmly shut, is something that needs to be humoured. “Dreaming of nice things, I hope. There's a copy of Juggs around if you need some stimulation, although Person's had his hands – and God knows what other parts of his anatomy – on it. I'd recommend a hazmat suit.”

Nate snorts softly, mouth twitching upwards. “You make it sound so tempting. But Juggs isn't really my thing.” His eyes open, at last, meeting the blue of Brad's and almost getting lost in them. There's no drowning in this corner of the desert, but he feels like he's falling headfirst into something all the same.

Brad doesn't say anything else, but his eyebrows raise in question, and Nate inclines his head in response. Nate's 'thing', when it comes down to it, is this. Is Brad. Every moment catalogued, every silent conversation filed away – fuel for the combat jacks he doesn't have, for dreams he tries desperately to tug away from Iraq. Dreams where Brad’s in a bed with white linens, clean and fresh. He wants to kiss him, and take his time. He wants to trail fingers along endless skin, lips following their path.

He wants so much. He _wants._

But he's glad it's not vocalised: this is the silence he finds most comforting. Despite the need for solitude, there's no desire to send him away—they have always occupied the same space, LT and TL, two pieces that fit next to one another with an ease he could never have predicted.

What of this? He could not have predicted this either; the way his stomach ties in knots when he looks at Brad, the tension he could cut with his Ka-bar. It's not just him that feels it, is it? Nate doesn't want to question, to wonder what Brad want. He's so tired of questions with no answers – or answers that cannot be spoken here, a hair's breadth away from the Marine Corps' finest, in Buttfuck, Iraq.

He's so tired.

Brad makes an interrogative noise, and Nate realises he's closer, enough that Nate has to tip his chin up to look him in the eye. Ice-cold killer he might be, but Brad's eyes aren't cold. Calm, yes, serene, like none of this bullshit ever gets to him – though Nate knows that's not the case, that this appearance of control covers a heart that bleeds and a mind that remembers – but not once has Nate looked at him and shivered.

Well. That's not entirely true. However, it's not the Iceman that makes Nate shiver, but Brad. All Brad.

No question was asked, but he nods like there was, gaze flicking to Brad's mouth, curled into a kind of self-satisfied smirk, the cat who got the cream. It makes Nate's heart thud painfully against the cage of his ribs, desperate to escape, breath stolen from his chest.

He _knows_ , rather than realises, that there isn't confusion here. He _knows_ Brad's been waiting, too. They've both been waiting so long.

Which is why it surprises him that Brad seems in no hurry; they are not home safe yet, they aren't hidden away entirely. Nate is assured that this corridor is a quiet one, but that means nothing. They are, after all, surrounded by the best damn Marines in the Corps.

But Brad just looks at him, top to toe and back again. Nate wonders what he sees, which pieces of Nate's soul are piercing through the cracks in his skin. What will Brad think of him now, after everything, when Nate doesn't even know if he'd be able to look at himself in a mirror.

He breathes in, and Brad presses closer. Not his full weight, not as much as he seems to want, restraining the full force of it, but it is a weight pressing Nate into the wall all the same. Brad swallows and meets his eyes, and Nate can see the desire, held back by infamous control.

(One day soon, he wants to make that control disappear. He wants to find what parts of himself Brad has hidden beneath it.)

All the things he should be saying die a rapid death on his lips: we can’t, we shouldn’t, it’s inappropriate. If he were a good officer, he’d push Brad away, take the hurt in his eyes as part of his burden—but Nate no longer knows if he’s a good officer. Maybe he’s not even a good person.

Because he wants this. He wants _something_ good, to be able to press it into Brad’s hands. He wants to not feel like he’s failed this man.

They breathe together, instinct matching breath for breath, as Brad's hands rest on Nate's waist, fingers dragging up over cammies, leaving scorching paths in their wake. Invading a desert country in a MOPP suit has nothing on the heat Nate feels, flames set by Brad's fingertips and fanned into a roar by Nate's hunger.

It warms the void in his chest, the numbing loneliness that has sat there since Kuwait. His hands settle on Brad's shoulders, solid and grounding, certain; he is not shying away. Holding back, yes – they cannot forget where they are – but not shy.

He breathes out, and Brad's hands cradle his jaw, so much softer than anticipated, as though Nate is a precious thing, and not a dirty, weary Marine. Brad’s fingers against skin makes his breath stutter, his own fingers curling around the back of Brad’s neck, nails scratching through the hair there.

Nate smiles, then, genuine warmth pushing back the shadows beneath his eyes, and nods assent.

He breathes in, and time stills, a heavy pause as Brad ducks the difference between their heights, those fingers tilting Nate’s head the way he wants it. Nate can feel the warmth of his breath, the solid reality of him, here, and then Brad’s lips are on his. The moment of stunned immobility – still stunned, despite the inevitability of this moment – tips over, time catching up to itself as Nate’s fingers haul Brad closer still, every nerve attuned to the way Brad’s lips feel on his.

Hesitance disappears as Nate flicks his tongue over Brad’s lip, evaporating into the too-hot sky, another thing lost to Iraq. This one is, at least, a welcome loss, a burden no longer carried with him. He’s been waiting a long time for this. They’ve both been waiting a long time for this.

It’s not pretty. Soft is not something they remember how to be, a weakness they’ve had to beat out of themselves to survive in war, but it doesn’t matter. Everything tastes of desperation, of need, and they are clinging onto this with all that they have. They only get one moment. One moment before the boundaries must exist once again—this is fierce as they try to make the most of it.

Nate’s fingers dig into the skin beneath Brad’s collar, tiny crescents left by his nails that will have faded by the next time Brad can shower, while he’s pinned to the wall with the weight of Brad’s body. If he wanted to, he could get free; Rudy might kick his ass to the mat at every MCMAP session, but that doesn’t mean Nate’s incapable. He could get free, but he doesn’t want to—he never wants to again.

Instead, he surges up, a hand cupping the back of Brad’s head and hauling him down; Brad’s tongue slides between his lips, licking into Nate’s mouth. His tongue against Nate’s (finally, _finally_ ) causes sparks, electricity dancing all the way down to his toes and lighting up this grim, dusty world that they are now living in. This is no goddamned fairytale, but he can almost imagine the arty firing off somewhere in the distance is a Disney-esque firework display, cliché as that might be. Brad would laugh, if he told him, Nate is assured of that.

But Brad doesn’t laugh. He maps out Nate’s mouth, learning the AO so that he, too, can remember this until they can do it again, and when they pull back for air, Nate drags his lip with his teeth, wishing he could leave indentations there, a reminder that yes, this happened. Yes, they did this, and it was exactly as he dreamed.

Brad makes a sound in his throat, indication that he’s clinging to control with only his fingertips. It’s a precipice Nate wishes they could tumble over, falling into the comforting dark of desire and letting it swallow them whole. It would be easy, he thinks, to get off like this, to grind together like teenagers sneaking around behind the school, Brad’s knee between his legs and their mouths pressed together, again and again. And how he wants to, but they can’t. He wants to, but life has a habit of not giving him what he wants, lately.

“When we get home,” Brad says. His words taste like promises; Nate wants to suck them from the tip of his tongue, tattoo them beneath his eyelids so he can see them there when the hopelessness rises up and threatens to choke him. This is hope, he realises belatedly. Hope is fluttering in his chest, all from a kiss and four words breathed against him, a secret only they are privy to. They don’t need words, he and Brad, they can have a conversation in silence...but sometimes they are nice. Necessary.

Their foreheads are pressed together, Brad’s breath warm on his face. Brad barely broke a sweat, running around Camp Mathilda, but here he is, gasping like the air’s been stolen from his chest. At least Nate’s achieved _something_ monumental, in this clusterfuck of a war.

“When we get home,” Brad tries again, thumbs dragging smoothly down Nate’s cheeks, “I want—”

So much. Those are the missing words there; Nate knows, because he feels it too. Because he wants to hold Brad close and not let go, he wants to dig beneath unnecessary layers of clothing and press his ear to Brad’s heart, just to hear it beat. He wants to kiss, and kiss, and kiss until his jaw aches, until his lips are red and swollen, until all of this shit they are both carrying is forgotten, stowed away with their duffels.

He wants to know how Brad tastes when he’s not tinged with frustration, to know the weight of him on his tongue. He wants to see him spread out on clean sheets, to really _see him_ in ways that are impossible, here. He wants to feel Brad inside him, he wants—

He wants. He wants. He wants so much.

“I know, Brad.”

He leans up again, a silent promise in the press of his lips, softer than before, more chaste. His fingers curl tight in Brad’s cammies, just another moment before he’s willing to let go, to file this away and act like it never happened. “Me too.”


End file.
